1. Field
The disclosure relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for the backup of hierarchically structured storage pools.
2. Background
A storage manager, such as, the Tivoli* Storage Manager* (TSM) product marketed by International Business Machines (IBM*) Corporation, may be used for securely storing and backing up data. The storage manager may execute in a storage management server, such as, a TSM server, and assure data integrity and provide the ability to protect business critical data in the event of hardware, software and environmental failures. The storage manager may maintain an image of the data and programs on storage media, such as, disks or tape cartridges. In the event of a system failure or other event that results in a loss of data, the storage manager may be used to restore the data and programs from the available storage media. IBM, Tivoli, and Tivoli Storage Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation.
The TSM may provide data storage services to clients, such as TSM clients, for backup, archive, or space management of data. The TSM server may store files sent to the TSM server by one or more TSM clients. The storage manager may allow a system administrator to configure storage pools, where a storage pool comprises a group of devices used for storing data received from the TSM client. Storage pools are used as targets for store operations from the TSM client and are referenced in TSM server policies and other constructs for processing.
Storage pools can be organized into a storage hierarchy such that one pool has a “next” pool. For example, if there is a first pool referred to as “DISKPOOL”, then the pool “DISKPOOL” may be configured to have a next pool referred to as “TAPEPOOL”. Logically, such a configuration may represent a hierarchy with “DISKPOOL” being the first pool in the hierarchy and “TAPEPOOL” being the next pool in the hierarchy.
Storage media within the storage hierarchy may thus be grouped into data structures referred to as storage pools. Data being stored from a TSM client to a TSM server is directed to a primary storage pool based on policies defined by the system administrator. Once the data has been stored in the storage hierarchy, a copy can be made for the purposes of creating a backup of the data. The system administrator may either manually or through a scheduled event begin backing up the data to a copy storage pool. The copy storage pool is a type of storage pool used for storing duplicate copies of the data that is stored in the primary storage pool hierarchy. These copy pools are used to protect against media failure and may also be used to transfer storage volumes offsite to a remote vault location for disaster recovery services. Copy pools may used for restoring data in the event of a data loss. In certain TSM implementations, all pools in a primary storage pool hierarchy may be backed up to the same copy storage pool.